By John Helmer, Moscow United Company Rusal has admitted that one large international bank is refusing to accept the restructuring terms the company has offered for loans totaling $5.15 billion which fall due for repayment by July 7. Until now, there has been speculation that state-owned Chinese banks had been pressing for repayment in cash, […]

By John Helmer, Moscow The Swiss Federal Police and the Federal Office for Migration will shortly decide whether the residency permit issued to Igor Kolomoisky to live in Geneva will be extended beyond the current expiry date. Kolomoisky’s permit comes up for renewal in October, and four months of investigation may be required by the […]

By John Helmer, Moscow Three years of litigation in New York and Delaware between Severstal and US steelmaker RG Steel over a failed Maryland steelmill, for which Alexei Mordashov paid $810 million, will be finalized at a US court hearing on July 15. Moscow and US sources report that lawyers for the two sides are […]

By John Helmer, Moscow The Ukrainian revolution has been very bad for business in the country. But for Igor Kolomoisky’s Privatbank there has been compensation of almost a billion dollars in state funds: publicly, rival Ukrainian commercial banks call that favouritism; privately, Ukrainian business as usual. Privatbank is Ukraine’s largest commercial bank. Since the replacement […]

By John Helmer, Moscow In March, when he thought it was safe to speak his mind at the Amber Restaurant in Warsaw, Poland’s Foreign Minister Radoslaw (Radek) Sikorski (lead image, left) used a racial expletive to refer to the Polish relationship with the US government, which is so unpleasant, noone outside Poland has been willing […]

By John Helmer, Moscow In the New York and London markets brokers and bankers explain that they are being discreetly called by US Treasury officials with this message: buying Russian equity or debt paper is legal, but in the event there is a new round of sanctions, it will be illegal to re-sell them, so […]

By John Helmer, Moscow Putting money where the mouth is, the value of Russian artworks has reached a record high this month at auctions of Christie’s, Sotheby’s and MacDougall’s. Bad mouthing by the US State Department daily briefer is cheaper, as the US Government endorses Ukrainian government hate speech in referring to Russians in general […]

By John Helmer, Moscow Two months after South Africa’s (SA) President Jacob Zuma appeared to drop Russia in favour of a Chinese-American combination for the country’s $50 billion nuclear reactor programme, the head of the SA National Nuclear Regulator, Bismark Tyobeka, appeared in Moscow last week to be favouring the Russian bid over the competition. […]

By John Helmer, Moscow Victor Boyarkin, the former lieutenant-colonel of Russian military intelligence and special operations chief for United Company Rusal, returned to the company on Monday after an absence of fifteen months. In Conakry, the capital of Guinea, his arrival is anticipated shortly for a fresh attempt by Oleg Deripaska, Rusal’s chief executive, to […]

By John Helmer, Moscow The holes in Emmental cheese are so characteristic of the Swiss brand, their diameters are officially fixed by the US Food and Drug Administration. The reason for the holes is that in fabrication of the cheese, the addition of the Propionibacterium shermani causes the release of carbon dioxide. When the wheels […]